The school-leaver up at 4am, and a Katy Perry dancer turned Cup strapper: Racing’s pre-dawn heroes

Ed Corstens is now getting up for work at the same time some of his school-leaver mates are getting home. But he’s not too fazed. As a somewhat late comer to the family business, he’s now all-in.

Sarah Nowland has jumped in head-first into it too, albeit from a rather different background. A professional dancer, she burns the candle at both ends, up at 4am and off to work, riding track work, feeding and grooming thoroughbreds and mucking out stalls.

Ed Corstens, a strapper at his family’s Malua Racing stables, washes down Turn It Up Tommy after track work.Credit: Justin McManus

They are just two of many thousands of strappers, stable hands or track riders throughout Victoria who take on racing’s least glamorous roles every day. While Derby Day at Flemington might attract the height of fashion and society’s elite, it’s these pre-dawn heroes who keep the sport’s heart beating.

Against a constant stream of TikToks and newspaper editorials they both are only too happy to tell you they think they’re proof against the idea that racing no longer appeals to young people. And after turbulent years of the pandemic and slow economic recovery, “Fabulous Flemington” roared back to life this spring, with crowds eclipsing expectations and the story of the Cup winners capturing the nation’s imagination.

From the singing jockey Robbie Dolan, to Sheila Laxon, the first woman to train a Melbourne Cup winner on her first attempt and the first to win two – remarkably on her second attempt, more than two decades on.

Corstens, the 18-year-old son and grandson of multiple group 1 winning trainers Troy and Leon Corstens, has just finished Year 12 at St Bernard’s in Essendon West, and he’s thrilled that he won’t have to sit through another maths class.

Despite racing being part of the family business, he admits he showed little care for it during his formative years, and it was only during the coronavirus pandemic he felt he needed to earn his keep.

“I just really never took interest in it,” he says. “And then we were stuck up on our farm during COVID and I thought, better than sitting there and doing nothing I may as well go learn to ride and work in the stables and earn a bit of money. I got bitten by the bug I guess.”

He’s up before 4am for work nowadays. Leading out horses at the family stables, Malua Racing, for the pre-dawn workouts or on feeding or grooming duties. After that, he often drives his friend Jett Stanley, an apprentice jockey and son of trainer Brent, to the races as a kind of personal Uber.

Ed Corstens fell in love with horses and racing during the pandemic lockdowns and it’s now a part of his life.Credit: Justin McManus

Corstens admits it can be problematic to be known as “the boss’s son”, but he wouldn’t dare cut corners.

“You can get in trouble at work, and then everyone else gets to go home and not think about it any more,” he says. “But I get to hear about it all day.”

While a business degree at university beckons over the next few years, Corstens has his eye on the Godolphin Flying Start program, a unique management and leadership training program that specialises in the international thoroughbred racing and breeding industry.

“I think training for me eventually is probably the focus at the moment,” Corstens says. “But you know, if something popped up that I thought that I really loved doing – breeding or something else in racing – I could also do that.”

Strapper Sarah Nowland, a professional dancer, with mare Positivity, who ran in the Melbourne Cup.Credit: Racing Photos

Sarah Nowland, 30, grew up in suburban Box Hill but learnt to ride through family connections in regional Victoria. She pursued a career as a professional dancer, but two years ago landed a job working at the Flemington stables of trailblazing Gai Waterhouse and her training partner Adrian Bott.

In the past two months she’s danced with Katy Perry at the AFL grand final in front of 100,000 people at the MCG and this week led out Positivity, the four-year-old mare from New Zealand trained by Andrew Forsman, for the Melbourne Cup. Nowland joined Forsman’s Melbourne stables earlier this year and now works alongside foreman Chloe Cumming.

‘When I was strapping the horse in the mounting yard, I thought, goodness, this is just about as many people as it is as it was at the MCG.’

Sarah Nowland

Sarah Nowland (right) with foreman Chloe Cumming and Positivity.Credit: Racing Photos

Strapping a Melbourne Cup runner was not what she had in mind two years’ ago but her progress through the sport at such a rapid rate has fuelled her love. To be part of Australian racing’s most famous day took it to another level.

“When I was strapping the horse in the mounting yard, I thought, goodness, this is just about as many people as it is as it was at the MCG,” Nowland says. “It almost felt like it was a few more at Flemington because they were closer to you, whereas on the ground, at the ’G, they were quite far away from us ... they were both really special, really different.”

Nowland admits that having a day job with pre-dawn starts and taking dance classes during the day puzzled some of her friends, but she had become a vocal advocate for the sport and also the role women play in it.

She says she’s had to, at times, defend the sport to some of her friends on the grounds of animal welfare but says working full-time has given her a new appreciation of the high standards.

“They are very supportive, yeah, and really encouraging,” she says. “Some of my dancing friends, or people that are in completely different walks of life, they don’t really know what racing is, and they say, ‘Oh, isn’t that cruel for the horses?’ But I tell them about what I see and the high standards of care.”

She’s formed a strong bond with Positivity, fourth last across the line on Tuesday, who she says is “beautiful, sweet, and quiet” with a great understanding of her job and how to take care of her rider.

Nowland says having a female jockey, Winona Costin, take the ride, was fantastic too.

She says she, and so many women in racing, will forever be in debt for learning the ropes under Waterhouse, one of the world’s pioneering female trainers.

“What she did when she was younger definitely wasn’t easy. But, you know, she, she just kept at it.”

“Winona said in an interview about the Cup, ‘You know, it’s really just an even playing field. We don’t really see ourselves as male or female’.”

Ed Corstens’ dad Troy has doubts about reports that youngsters are turning their back on the industry too, if the enthusiasm of his son and his friends are anything to go by.

“His work ethic is his greatest attribute and it gives me a lot of faith in the generation coming through,” Troy says. “Quite a few of his friends also work with us, and I’d be more than happy to recommend them to any employer.”

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